It's been several years, but I still vividly remember the "Play" zone of the Millenium Dome when I visited back in the late summer of 2000. In particular, I remember being impressed and intrigued by the works of Toshio Iwai.
Toshio Iwai is a Japanese digital artist that beautifully incorporates music, graphics, and game like interactivity into installation and software works. Basically, he does exactly what I wanted to be doing when I started off in this field, only he pulls it off brilliantly. Most Americans know about him through his software "Sim Tunes," a tool/game for computers that let you easily compose graphical and musical compositions. It was recognized as a piece of interactive art and still influences a lot of interactive music toy work to this day.
His work "Table" directly influenced this early piece of mine.
Me visiting "Play" was so important because it was an extremely positive first glance into the world of Interactive Art. The presentation was neat, clean, and professional. Careful thought was put into the lighting design so that each piece stood on its own quite well. There was not a bare wire to be seen. Instructions for the pieces were nearby but didn't give away so much that the anticipation of discovery was destroyed.
"No duh" you say? So many shows I've been to and been involved in afterwards got something wrong, and these mistakes can hurt both the pieces inside the show and the perception of the entire field.
Posted by edtang at September 18, 2004 09:59 PM